Delivery of fluid-containing feed materials to process equipment (e.g., process tools) is routinely performed in a variety of manufacturing processes. Numerous industries require that feed materials be provided in ultra-pure form and substantially free of contaminants. The term “feed material” in this context refers broadly to any of various materials used or consumed in manufacturing and/or industrial processes.
In the context of manufacturing semiconductors, microelectronic devices, and/or components or precursors thereof, the presence of even small amounts of certain contaminants can render a resulting product deficient, or even useless, for its intended purpose. Accordingly, delivery systems (e.g., including containers and delivery components) used to supply feed materials to such manufacturing equipment must be of a character that avoids contamination issues. Material delivery containers must be rigorously clean in condition, while avoiding particle shedding, outgassing, and any other form of imparting contaminants from the containers and delivery components to feed materials contained within or otherwise disposed in contact therewith. Material delivery systems should desirably maintain feed material in a pure state, without degradation or decomposition of the contained material, given that exposure of feed materials to ultraviolet light, heat, environmental gases, process gases, debris, and impurities may impact such materials adversely. Certain feed materials may interact with one another in undesirable ways (e.g., chemical reaction or precipitation), such that combined storage of such constituents should be avoided. As pure feed materials can be quite expensive, waste of such materials should be minimized Exposure to toxic and/or hazardous feed materials should also be avoided.
As a result of these considerations, many types of high-purity packaging have been developed for liquids and liquid-containing compositions used in microelectronic device manufacturing, such as photoresists, etchants, chemical vapor deposition reagents, solvents, wafer and tool cleaning formulations, chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) compositions, color filtering chemistries, overcoats, liquid crystal materials, etc. Reactive fluids may be used in certain applications, and compositions including multiple different fluids, and/or fluid-solid compositions may be useful.
One type of high-purity packaging that has come into such usage includes a rigid or semi-rigid overpack containing a liquid or liquid-based composition in a flexible liner or bag that is secured in position in the overpack by retaining structure such as a lid or cover. Such packaging is commonly referred to as “bag-in-can” (BIC), “bag-in-bottle” (BIB) and “bag-in-drum” (BID) packaging. Packaging of such general type is commercially available under the trademark NOWPAK from ATMI, Inc. (Danbury, Conn., USA). Preferably, a liner comprises a flexible material, and the overpack container comprises a wall material that is substantially more rigid than said flexible material. The rigid or semi-rigid overpack of the packaging may for example be formed of a high-density polyethylene or other polymer or metal, and the liner may be provided as a pre-cleaned, sterile collapsible bag of a single layer or multi-layer laminated film materials, including polymeric materials such as such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), low-density polyethylene, PTFE-based multilaminates, polyamide, polyester, polyurethane, or the like, selected to be inert to the contained liquid or liquid-based material to be contained in the liner. Exemplary materials of construction of a liner further include: metallized films, foils, polymers/copolymers, laminates, extrusions, co-extrusions, and blown and cast films.
In dispensing operation involving certain liner-based packages of liquids and liquid-based compositions, contents may be dispensed from the liner by connecting a dispensing assembly (optionally including a dip tube or short probe immersed in the contained liquid) to a port of the liner. After the dispensing assembly has been thus coupled to the liner, fluid (e.g., gas) pressure is applied on the exterior surface of the liner, so that it progressively collapses and forces liquid through the dispensing assembly due to such pressure dispensing for discharge to associated flow circuitry for flow to an end-use site.
A problem incident to the use of pressure dispensing packages is permeation or in-leakage of gas into the contained liquid, and solubilization and bubble formation in the liquid. In the case of liner-based packages, pressurizing gases between the liner and overpack may permeate through the liner into the contained liquid, where such gases may be dissolved. When the liquid subsequently is dispensed, pressure drop in the dispensing lines and downstream instrumentation and equipment may cause liberation of formerly dissolved gas, resulting in the formation of bubbles in the stream of dispensed liquid, with adverse effects on the downstream process. It would therefore be desirable to minimize migration of headspace gas into contained fluid in a liner-based dispensing container.
When dispensing fluids subject to wide variation in desired flow rate, it may be challenging to provide a desirably wide range of flow without sacrificing flow control accuracy or precision. It would be desirable to accurately control dispensation of one or more fluids (including multiple fluids supplied as a mixture) over a wide range of desired flow rates.
In the context of providing multi-component formulations for industrial or commercial use, it may be difficult to rapidly provide a wide variety of formulations for desired processes, while avoiding waste of source materials and minimizing need for cleaning of constituent storage and/or dispensing components. It would be desirable to overcome these difficulties.
When dispensing multi-component formulations including one or more components that may be subject to decomposition with respect to time, it may be difficult or cumbersome to frequently determine the concentration of one or more components (e.g., utilizing titration, or sensing methods such as reflectance). Such methods may be labor intensive, may require expensive additional chemistries (e.g., for titration), and/or may require expensive instrumentation. It would be desirable to provide a simple and reliable method for rapidly determining concentration of one or more components of such a formulation.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, various combinations of the foregoing challenges associated with delivery of multi-constituent feed materials are also inherent to fluid-utilizing processes in contexts other than CMP, including, but not limited to, food and beverage processing, chemical production, pharmaceutical production, biomaterial production, and bioprocessing.
It would be desirable to mitigate the foregoing problems in supplying feed materials to fluid-utilizing processes employing fluid-containing process materials.